Americans love IM: Pew
p2pnet.net News:- American instant messagers use the “expressive tools of IM more frequently than the protective tools that allow them to block unwanted communications”.
This is revealed in a Pew Internet and American Life survey examining how people in the US handle instant messaging (IM).
But, “Buddy list management also occurs relatively infrequently, with users reporting adding or deleting buddies from their list no more than a few times a month,” it says.
More than four in ten “online Americans” use IM applications, meaning about 53 million American adults use IM programs,” says the study, and 24% swap IMs more often than email.
About 11 million use IM at work and are “becoming fond of its capacity to encourage productivity and interoffice cooperation”.
People utilize IM not only as a way to expand and remain connected their social circle, “but also as a form of self-expression, through use of customized away messages, profiles and buddy icons,” says Pew.
In brief:
- 42% of internet users – more than 53 million American adults – report using instant messaging. There has been modest growth in the overall IM population since the Project first started tracking it in April 2000. At that point, about 41 million adults used IM, so the growth rate of the IM population is around 29%.
- On a typical day, 12% of internet users (or 29% of those who use IM) instant message with others. That translates into just under 13 million people using IM on any given day and constitutes a growth rate of about 9% since April 2000.
- 24% of those 54 million IM users report using IM more frequently than email and 6% of IM users say they use IM as much as they use email.
- 70% report using email more than instant messaging.
- 36% of IM users say they use IM every day and 63% say they use IM at least several times a week.
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